Yesterday, I shared my thoughts on Overnight Sensation by Richard Tyler Jordan. If you read my review, you already know this isn’t a book I would hand to Charlie or recommend for family reading time. It’s an adult novel filled with Hollywood excess, adult language, sex, questionable behavior, and characters who certainly don’t always make the best decisions.
But sometimes a book gives us more than a story. It gives us a reason to ask questions, learn about someone else’s experiences, and look at the world through a different set of eyes.
That is one reason I wanted to interview Richard. His life in Hollywood, including 30 years working at Disney, gave him a fascinating perspective on the entertainment business. And the fact that he wrote Overnight Sensation behind Mickey Mouse’s back? Well, that certainly caught my attention!
I may not agree with every choice a character makes, and I don’t have to. I can still appreciate the storytelling, the humor, and the opportunity to learn something new. As I shared in my review, I believe we can treat people with kindness and respect without pretending we all see the world exactly the same way.
So, pull up a chair on the front porch with me. Let’s hear from Richard himself and find out what he has to say about Disney, Hollywood, writing, and the novel that started it all.
Meet Richard Tyler Jordan
Richard Tyler Jordan spent 30 years at Disney, working primarily in feature-film publicity, before bringing his own experiences and observations to the page. He is the author of Overnight Sensation, originally published in 2001, as well as other books, including the Polly Pepper Cozy Mystery Series.
His experiences in Hollywood provided plenty of inspiration for a novel filled with ambition, larger-than-life personalities, and the sort of behind-the-scenes behavior that makes you wonder what really happens when the cameras aren’t rolling. I sent Richard five questions, and he graciously shared his thoughts with us. I’m leaving his answers in his own words because I wanted you to hear his personality, humor, and perspective directly from him.
Five Questions With Richard Tyler Jordan
1. You spent 30 years at Disney. What did working there teach you about storytelling, creativity, and the entertainment business that stayed with you after you left?
I spent most of those 30 years in feature-film publicity, which taught me two invaluable lessons: everybody loves a good story, and occasionally the publicist has to invent one. I learned that show business is called that for a reason. You can have brilliant writers, gifted directors, enormous stars, and breathtakingly huge budgets—and still end up with a movie nobody wants to see. Then someone from publicity gets called into a meeting and asked, “So how are we going to sell this thing?” Suddenly everyone looks at you as though you’ve been concealing the cure for cancer.
Working at Disney was wonderful training for becoming a novelist. I learned very quickly to ask: What’s interesting here? Why should anyone care? And for God’s sake, when does something happen? I also discovered that movie stars are human, executives are human, and even enormously successful people spend an astonishing amount of time worrying that someone is about to discover they have no idea what they’re doing. This was enormously reassuring, since neither did I!
2. You described writing Overnight Sensation behind Mickey Mouse’s back. What finally made you decide to write the novel, and what was it like keeping that part of your life separate from your Disney career?
After years in Hollywood, I’d accumulated far too much material not to use it: ambition, egos, sex, bad behavior and people doing absolutely appalling things while looking fabulous. The slight complication was that I worked for Disney.
So by day I was Richard Tyler Jordan, mild-mannered Disney publicist, helping promote family entertainment. By night I became Ben Tyler, writing trashy Hollywood satire containing things that would have made Mickey and Minnie’s ears curl.
I kept the two lives completely separate—or thought I did. Eventually people at Disney discovered my secret identity. I braced myself for Maleficent to appear in a cloud of green smoke. Instead, a surprising number of my colleagues just wanted to know if I’d autograph their book. Looking back, I think having that secret life made writing the novel even more fun. Every morning I’d put Ben Tyler away, go back to the studio, and behave myself. Well, comparatively.
3. How much of your own experiences in Hollywood and the movie business found their way into the novel? Were there particular experiences or characters that inspired parts of the story?
Oh, plenty. I spent decades in Hollywood. It would have been criminal not to use all the material around me! But I never based a character on just one person. I borrowed a personality trait from here, an ego from there, a spectacularly bad bit of behavior from somewhere else, stirred vigorously—and changed the names.
What amused me after the book came out was how many people were convinced they recognized themselves—or, even better, somebody they worked with. Apparently we all go through life secretly believing we’re interesting enough to be characters in a novel. Nobody ever came up to me and said, “That dull person who appears on page 125—is that me?”
Even the nefarious boss in Overnight Sensation was an amalgamation of several people from different studios. No single human being was quite awful enough. It took a committee. That’s the fun of fiction. You start with reality, exaggerate shamelessly and, when questioned, deny everything.
4. The book was originally published in 2001. Looking back more than two decades later, is there anything about Overnight Sensation that you see differently now than you did when you wrote it?
Oh, absolutely. I’m a little embarrassed by some of the writing. It was my first novel, and I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Twenty books later, I still don’t entirely know what I’m doing—but at least I know the writing has gotten much better. I use fewer adverbs!
Reading it now is a little like finding an old photograph of yourself wearing something you once thought looked fabulous. There are sentences I’d definitely rewrite, scenes I’d handle differently, and quite a few adjectives I’d quietly escort from the building. But I wouldn’t rewrite the book. It belongs to that particular time and to the writer I was then, and I’m actually rather fond of that fellow. He was naive, more reckless, and much more certain he understood how the world worked. What pleases me most is that beneath the occasionally wobbly prose, I can still recognize my voice—the humor, the fascination with ambition and ridiculous people, and the instinct to find something funny even when the characters are behaving appallingly.
5. For readers discovering your work for the first time, what do you hope they take away from Overnight Sensation—and what would you like them to know about the person behind the novel?
First and foremost, I hope they have fun. I’m not trying to improve anyone’s moral character. I want readers to laugh, maybe cringe sometimes, turn the pages, and perhaps care about a few people they weren’t expecting to care about. Beneath all the sex, satire and Hollywood excess, Overnight Sensation is really about ambition—what we think we want, what we’re willing to do to get it, and what happens when getting it doesn’t make us quite as happy as the brochure promised.
As for the person behind the novel, I’m far less interesting than the people I invent. These days I live happily ever after in England, writing murder mysteries in a 500-year-old stone cottage. It’s a long way from Hollywood, and I seldom look back on that chapter of my life. But I’m forever grateful for all the opportunities I had at Disney. I’ve had a wonderfully improbable life—and the great joy is that I’m still writing the next chapter. I just hope it has a good ending. 🤭
My Thoughts After Talking With Richard
One of the things I enjoyed about Richard’s answers is his humor. Even when he’s talking about the entertainment business, his first novel, or looking back at his own writing, he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously. And goodness knows, we could all use a little more laughter in our lives!
I also appreciated his honesty about looking back at a book he wrote more than two decades ago. We all have things we did years ago that we might do differently today. Sometimes we look back and cringe a little. Other times, we realize those earlier experiences helped make us who we are. I think there’s something comforting about recognizing how much we can grow while still appreciating the person we used to be.
His answer about creating fictional characters from pieces of different people made me smile, too. I imagine that after 30 years in Hollywood, he had plenty of material. And I can only imagine what it must have been like for colleagues to read the book and wonder whether they had made an appearance!
As I mentioned in my review, Overnight Sensation is not a book for everyone. It contains mature content, and readers should know that before picking it up. But I believe there is value in exploring stories and experiences outside our own little corner of the world. Reading something doesn’t mean we have to agree with every character, every decision, or every message. Sometimes it simply means we’re willing to listen, learn, and think.
Growing up, I had family members who were gay. They were family first. I loved them for the people they were, and that is something I have carried with me. I don’t believe kindness should depend on whether someone lives exactly as we do or believes exactly as we believe. We are all human beings, and we all deserve to be treated with dignity.
I’m not Jesus, and I’m certainly not here to judge everybody else’s life. I believe the Lord calls us to show love, and Dolly Parton has long reminded people of the power of spreading a little kindness. That is something I want to keep doing, come hell or high water.
I am grateful Richard took the time to answer my questions and let my readers get to know the person behind Overnight Sensation. His story about writing behind Mickey Mouse’s back gave me a glimpse into a very different world, and his answers reminded me that there is often more to a person than we might see at first glance.
And now I have one more thing to say: Richard, I hope the next chapter you’re writing in that 500-year-old English stone cottage has a very good ending, too! Have you read Overnight Sensation or another book by Richard Tyler Jordan? I’d love to hear what you think. And if you missed my review, you can read it here: [Read my Overnight Sensation review]. Thank you for sitting on the front porch with me today. Now I’m stepping off my soapbox and letting you get back to your reading!
Grateful. Thankful. Blessed.
GreatfulMoments.com
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
